In a former life I was an architecture and design journalist, and I still look around buildings with a critic’s eye, considering how you might translate the experience into the written word. Which is what I find myself doing now, having just come back from a four day trip to Lisbon – partly as a little winter escape, but mostly because I had an urge to see the new extension to the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma.
When I first visited Lisbon, almost ten years ago, I marvelled at the gem of the place that is the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum – a Modernist arts venue set in a sprawling bucolic garden, that feels a world away from Lisbon’s quaint tiled architecture. So much so, I think it’s one of my favourite museums in the world. Much like the Barbican in London, the complex was conceived in the 1960s as a complete cultural centre, where the public could flow freely between exhibition spaces, art galleries, concert halls and landscaped gardens. Portuguese architects Ruy d’Arthouguia, Alberto Pessoa and Pedro Cid created a series of low-lying, concrete buildings set into the lush landscape, the roofs designed as platforms that blend into the greenery, leading to a small lake and a sunken open-air amphitheatre.
Later in 1983, a new contemporary art museum was added to the southern tip of the park – the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian – designed by British architect Leslie Martin (perhaps better known as the man behind the Royal Festival Hall in London). Martin’s building complemented the Brutalist architecture of the original museum, with a stepped profile that transitioned the building from the street to the inner sanctum of the garden. Opened in September 2024, Kengo Kuma’s reimagining of the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian aims to dissolve the boundaries between inside and out even more.
All images Cate St Hill
Visitors to the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian are now greeted by a sweeping canopy, clad in white, triangle tiles on the exterior and wooden cladding on its underbelly. The protective canopy marks the entrance of the museum and extends along the back edge of the building, creating a route and walkway that leads the visitor right into the gardens. You emerge in Japanese inspired greenery, the expansive canopy almost skimming the top of your head, lending a sense of intimacy to the grand scale of the architecture.
Kuma took inspiration from a typical feature in traditional Japanese homes called the Engawa, a hallway-like path that runs around an internal set of rooms, almost like a veranda. Protected by the eaves of the roof, this space is neither inside or out, but functions as a place to pause and reflect on the landscape.
Kuma’s Engawa doesn’t so much function as somewhere to rest – the gardens already offer that – but as a grand gesture, marking the building as a new museum for the 21st century. I’m not quite sure what Leslie Martin would have thought of this gestural add-on; a flourish that feels a little superfluous and a tad out of context, but nevertheless it does it’s job, acting as a ‘wow’ moment to attract you inside the art gallery’s complex.
Inside, there is a similar connection between the internal world and the outside world. In the basement gallery, you could be in any gallery in the world, but on the ground floor you will find Leslie Martin’s showstopping stepped gallery, which has been refreshed and smartened up, almost to an inch of its life. I couldn’t help but feel that the museum had been sanitised and polished a little too much, losing a touch of the roughness that makes Brutalism so appealing. I was almost glad to see that they had left some weathering on the exterior of the building – after all, that’s what I so appreciate about Japanese design, their ability to embrace imperfection and create tactile, honest spaces that settle into the landscape and their surroundings.
My favourite space was the cafe, with floor to ceiling windows framing the greenery outside and minimalist black furniture. If anything, come here to have a cup of tea and gaze out at the green view, you won’t be disappointed.
Centro de Art Moderna Gulbenkian – open Wednesday-Monday, with free entry on Sundays from 2pm. The gardens are free and open every day from sunrise to sunset. Rua Marquês de Fronteira 2, 1050-078, Lisbon
